Telefonica Brasil SA (VIV) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vivo's Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded, and the replay will be available at the company's website at ri.telefonica.com.br. The presentation will also be available for download. This call is also available in Portuguese. (Operator Instructions)

(foreign language)

(Operator Instructions)

Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects, operational and financial projections and goals are the beliefs and assumptions of Vivo Executive Board and the current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and therefore, depends on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should be aware of events related to the macroeconomic scenario and the industry and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the respective forward-looking statements.

Present at this conference, we have Mr. Christian Gebara, CEO of the company; Mr. David Melcon, CFO and Investor Relations Officer; and Mr. João Pedro Carneiro, IR Director. Now I will turn the conference over to Mr. João Pedro Carneiro, Investor Relations Director of Vivo. Mr. Carneiro, you may begin your conference.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Telefonica Brasil's conference call to present the fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. The call will start with our CEO, Christian Gebara, commenting Vivo's financial and operating highlights, followed by an update on the progress of our digital ecosystems and ESG initiatives. Then our CFO, David Melcon, will go through our cost and CapEx evolution, net income, free cash flow and shareholder remuneration.

I'll now hand it over to Christian.

Thank you, Joao. Good morning, and thank you for joining our earning calls. I'll start by presenting the highlights of the fourth quarter and full year. 2022 was a transformational year for Vivo in the telecommunications industry in Brazil with the initial deployment of 5G stand-alone and the mobile market consolidation, both of which are bringing significant improvements to the quality of service and the customer experience. We closed the year with 112 million access, up 13.7% year-over-year, reinforcing our position as 1 of the Brazilian companies among all sectors, with the largest number of clients. Our 58.7 million access in postpaid and 5.5 million in FTTH give us a very solid recurring revenue base, protecting our results from inflation impacts. In this sense, our total revenue grew 10.1% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, driven by the expansion of 13.6% of our mobile service revenues and by the best fixed revenue results since the fourth quarter of 2015 with a growth of 2.9%. As a result, our EBITDA expanded 6.1% year-over-year, reaching 41.3% margin.

The strong operating performance delivered during 2022 was culminated by a relevant amount of free cash flow, closing the year with BRL 7.3 billion. The robust cash generation, which is 1 of the key elements of our equity story, allows us to declare over BRL 5 billion in dividends and interest on capital during 2022, on top of the BRL 600 million invested in buyback our shares. We firmly believe our shares to be undervalued. Hence, we are starting a new share buyback program aiming to invest an additional BRL 500 million during the next 12 months. To continue enhancing differentiating our shareholder remuneration capability, yesterday we filed with Anatel, I request that, if approved, will allow us to potentially reduce our capital stock by up to BRL 5 billion. This will give us further flexibility to decide on future cash distribution and how to improve our capital allocation.

Now we go to Slide 4 where we can see that for the second straight quarter, our top line grew well above inflation. The 10.1% year-over-year expansion results from the 13% growth of our core revenues that already represent 93% of our total revenues. This is particularly important as our noncore business, which for years, served as a drag to our revenue performance now waits less that aligns with potential to keep double-digit growth rate for years to come, such as FTTH and B2B data, ICT and digital services.

Moving to Slide 5. On the left-hand side of the slide, you can see that our mobile revenues increased 13.4% year-over-year as postpaid, prepaid and handset revenues all grew double digits. The mobile market consolidation and our leading commercial performance have been the main drivers here. On the right side, we detail our fixed core performance in which we had revenues climbing 11.9% year-over-year. The core products already represent 76% of our wireline business, up 6 percentage points on an annual basis. As a result, our total fixed revenues grew 2.9% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. This has been the best early growth rate we reached since the fourth quarter of 2015. As usual, the main drivers were FTTH and data and ICT and digital services, services that are hard to replicate and provide us with a robust platform for continued improvement of our fixed business going forward.

On Slide 6, we detail our operating performance on mobile and fiber closing a year that probably was the best in our recent history regarding our customer base evolution. On mobile, we added 14 million new customers during 2022, reaching 98 million access, up 16.8% year-over-year even after carrying out disconnection of 3.4 million inactive lines coming from Oi Mobiles acquisition, of which 339,000 were eliminated during the fourth quarter. Our postpaid base grew at an even higher pace, up 18.2% year-over-year as the migration of prepaid users to our hybrid plants continues to be very successful, while churn remains at record low levels, close to 1%. Also, we continue to be net gainers in portability of postpaid lines clearly leading with the best value proposition.

As a result, we closed the year with mobile market share of 38.9%, up almost 1 percentage point since April, which was the first month in which Anatel reported the consolidation of Oi's access with the buyer's basis. In fiber, we ended 2022 with 23.3 million homes passed with FTTH after rolling out the network to 3.7 million new premises. Moreover, we added 874,000 FTTH access during the year, expanding our customer base by 19% to 5.5 million homes connected.

Our convergent offer, Vivo Total has been very successful, representing around 70% of the FTTH net adds we registered during the fourth quarter, being the only player capable of providing 5G plus fiber flat unique offering on a nationwide basis is a key differentiator, enabling us to keep on improving our operating performance and reducing postpaid and fiber churn.

Moving to Slide 7. During 2022, our digital B2B revenues grew 29% year-over-year, reaching BRL 2.7 billion. These revenues that aggregated products such as cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, digital B2B solutions, among others, already represent 5.6% of our total top line and will soon outweighed noncore revenues. These services and solutions are in great demand as companies of all sizes are becoming more and more aware of how beneficial is to invest in digitization of their business. We will continue to deliver on our leading brand, complete portfolio, channel and reach capabilities to be the preferred partner of Brazilian companies in their digital transformation, capturing this unique opportunity.

Moving to the right-hand side of the slide, you can see that we continue to develop our presence as a digital finance hub, taking advantage of the dozens of millions of commercial relationships we have with individuals through our connectivity services to increase our share of wallet and customer monetization. Apart from Vivo Money, which closed the year with a loan portfolio of over BRL 180 million, growing by almost 7x year-over-year. We are also offering co-branded credit cards in partnership with Itau in handsets and home insurance products. In addition to that, Vivo Ventures, our corporate venture capital fund, made its second investment in a fintech by investing BRL 10 million, including that act as a consortium administrator with financing model that's become increasingly relevant in Brazil.

On Slide 8, we update you on our ESG initiatives. During 2022, we were able to deliver solid results on all fronts. In environment, we reduced by 50% year-over-year, our direct in-house gas emission and increased by 20% the collection of electronic waste through our Recycle with Vivo program. On diversity, we reached a 22.4% occupation of leadership rose by black people, growing 3 percentage points year-over-year. Also during 2022, Telefonica Vivo Foundation invested BRL 58 million to support students and teachers of the public education system in developing digital capabilities, benefiting 2.2 million people. We are also recognized as a leading telecom company in terms of corporate sustainability by S&P in their 2022 Sustainability Yearbook.

Finally, we are pleased to announce we had the second highest score among 83 participants in B3s ESG 2022 process being the only telco within the top 10 best qualified companies. This is an improvement, vis-a-vis the fourth place achieved in 2021, reflecting the efforts we make to create a more inclusive green and sustainable company.

Now David will take us through the financial highlights of the quarter.

Thank you, Christian, and good morning, everyone. Moving to Slide 9. The continued transformation of our cost-based structure remains underway as we accelerate revenues related to the digital B2B and B2C services and solutions that led to increase lifetime value of customers. Looking at the cost of services and goods sold that represent 35% of our OpEx in the quarter, it grew 11% year-over-year, driven by the ongoing transformation of our business mix as revenues coming from the sale of digital solutions and services, handset and accessories outpaced total top line expansion, leading to an improved growth profile. Cost of operations, which comprises the remaining 65% of our OpEx increased 14% year-over-year in the quarter. Here even though we continue to reduce costs such as commissioning, billing, call centers and back offices assisted by the increased usage of digital channels and payment platforms. This was compensated by the effects related to higher personnel costs and lower recovery of taxes and sale of unused network equipment in the quarter.

Another positive note, we expect to incorporate Garliava, the SPE that held the assets we bought from Oi Mobile during the first quarter of 2023, unlocking additional savings while also allowing for the tax amortization of the goodwill arising from this acquisition.

Moving to Slide 10. In 2022, we invested BRL 9.5 billion, which is the highest ever annual capital expenditure, excluding licenses made by us. This year were particularly pressured by investments made to incorporate Oi Mobile assets of around BRL 500 million and by the initial deployment of 5G to key cities, to start building a network that was recently considered as the 1 delivering the fastest 5G in Brazil. We also accelerated our FTTH home-pass footprint, taking the opportunity to further consolidate our leadership in fiber. Even so, our operating cash flow expanded 4.4% year-over-year, reaching BRL 9.8 billion.

For 2023, we just provided a market guidance on CapEx that will bring strong revenues in the coming years, committing to invest less than BRL 9 billion in the period, thus allowing for an important improvement of our CapEx per sales ratio. This year's investment will be focused on the continued expansion of our 5G coverage on the reinforcement of our overall mobile capacity and on the increase of our FTTH penetration.

Moving to Slide 11. In 2022, our net income reached BRL 4.1 billion. The year-over-year comparison was impacted by some positive nonrecurring events that benefited the previous year results as well as by the higher average interest rate seen in 2022 versus 2021, which, coupled with our increased level of net debt directly penalized our financial results. On the other hand, we delivered once again an excellent result in terms of free cash flow with a generation of BRL 7.3 billion in 2022, representing 15.2% of our revenues. This 11.3% free cash flow yield is among the very best in the sector and denotes how resilient our business is under any circumstance.

Finally, now going to Slide 12. Here, we detail the components of our 2022 shareholder remuneration, as well I'll discuss the additional levers that will allow for a continuation of strong cash returns going forward. Considering the dividend and interest on capital events declared with record dates in 2022, our total distribution reached BRL 5.1 billion of which BRL 2 billion were already paid out to our shareholders in October 18, 2022, while the remaining BRL 3.1 billion will be paid out on April 18 and July 18, 2023. In addition, we invested over BRL 600 million to buy back our own shares, resulting in a total of BRL 5.7 billion of shareholder remuneration equivalent to 8.9% of the company market cap as of December 2022.

We keep working on ways to maintain the cash returns to our shareholders. As such, yesterday, our Board of Directors green lighted the following: First, the proposal to our 2023 General Shareholder Meeting to be held next April of dividend based on 2022 results of BRL 827 million to be paid out on July 18, 2023. Second, the deliberation of BRL 106 million in interest on capital based on January 2023 results. Third, the cancellation of 13.4 million shares held in treasury on December 31, 2022, equivalent to 0.8% of our capital. Fourth, the creation of a new share buyback program to be executed from February 2023 to February 2024, with a potential to invest up to BRL 500 million to buy back our stock. Fifth, the request to Anatel of a prior consent to potentially reduce our capital stock by up to BRL 5 billion, which, if approved, will bring important flexibility to decide on the future remuneration of our shareholders and capital structure.

As you can see, we remain highly committed to maintain our differentiation as 1 of the few companies that combine important growth avenues such as the 1 presented by the mobile consolidation, fiber capillarity ensuring demand for digital B2B and B2C solutions with a rock solid balance sheet and cash flow generation capacity while providing leading shareholders deals. Thank you. And now we can move to the Q&A.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Fred Mendes of the Bank of America.

I have 2 here on my side. The first one is related to capital reduction. I mean I think it was a good move in the capital reduction most likely to increase the dividends. But the question is, why BRL 5 billion? I mean, why not more, considering the equity of [BRL 6.5 billion] you guys have? That will be my first one. And then as a second one, at least with the scenario we have today, it looks like 2023 is going to be a year of lower inflation, right, which I think is particularly good for the telcos. How do you see the opportunity to reduce costs here, eventually increasing margins further in 2023?

Fred, thank you for the question. Look, our free cash flow generation, I mean, exceed the annual net income. It has been like this for many years. And we have limited distributor reserves left. Therefore, we believe a capital reduction address this situation, allowing us to create a platform to distribute more cash than the annual net income. We used -- I mean we had a 100% payout over the few years. So with this capital reduction, if it's approved, we should be able to have a higher payout than BRL 100 million. We believe BRL 5 billion is the right amount to have a story for the next few years now.

Also regarding timing, I'm sure your question is also about this. I mean we -- now we need to wait around 6 months for Anatel prior consent approval. And then we will need to go through also all the internal governance approval, such as Board and general assembly.

And I can take the beginning of the second question, and then Christian can also elaborate. Look, we are showing the OpEx breakdown showing the cost of service and goods sold and cost of operation. On the first one, I mean we have been growing 11% in the last quarter. But if you look to the revenues that are linked to those costs, which are mainly have to do with digital services and handsets, we are growing more than 50%, not just B2B digital services, they grow 29%. And in the other part of the cost they have to do more with operations. There are a few things that happened in the second half of this year. The first 1 is the acquisition of Vita IT, which is a company -- a B2B company that's allowing us to accelerate the growth in B2B. This is bringing additional costs, particularly on personnel costs. That's why we are seeing an increase on personnel cost that year-over-year next year, we shouldn't see such a growth.

Also, we have the cost from the integration of Oi. Just to remind you that we are paying BRL 146 million for the transition service agreement to Oi, which is more than BRL 12 million per month. This will finish at the end of the first quarter 2023. So it's something that we will not have in the 9 months of 2023. Also inflation for next year, we are expecting to be lower than 2022. So this is also a lever. Also, we are seeing that the new revenue streams are coming with higher OpEx, but without CapEx. So this is also an upside because we look to operating capital margin that we will see that will be an expand for next year.

And also that -- it's also leading to the story of the integration of Oi, is that, we are planning to incorporate to merge Garliava, which is the company we acquired the assets from Oi mobile in the next, let's say, 1 month or 1.5 months. This not only will bring savings in OpEx, but also this will unlock the tax benefit coming from the amortization of the goodwill. And this is just to remind you, is more than BRL 1 billion cash that would come through in the next 5 years.

So all in all, we see a stand on margins and also a growth in operating cash flow for the next year also because the CapEx, as Christian mentioned, I mean we are going to also to have a below BRL 9 billion.

And just to complement like the 2. The second is exactly what he said. So there is the impact on the inflation on personnel costs. That is an important part of our cost of serving. So it's going to be positive in that way, the operation that we have now related to personnel. Of course, there is this change in mix that we mentioned, Fred. So well, of course, now when we start also selling more digital service that is cost of goods sold, that is different, different cost mix. But in the absolute numbers in the EBITDA, we are very positive about our growth. So -- and also digitalization. We're increasing a lot the digitalization and the representativeness of our channels, both the app and also the WhatsApp if the user -- or artificial intelligence that we're increasing the usability, especially now with the new developments of artificial intelligence that we're going to start impacting our way of serving customers through these channels.

And in the first question about the capital reduction, it's good also to bear in mind that in 2025, the concession -- the solution about the concession will be there. So the migration -- that is what we expect. So in this case, we're going to have much more flexibility also to capital reduction. So for 2 years, that's the proposal that we have.

Perfect. Very clear Christian and David. Just if I may, a follow-up on the concession idea. 2025, the base case in your mind to finish the concession without paying anything extra for it, right? That's the best case.

Look, we are in the middle of the process. There is -- as you know, there are 2 processes that are going in parallel. The first one is the value that Anatel decided that would be required for the migration that is at the moment is being analyzed by the TCU, okay. That's something that is public, and there is a number, the figure -- we are -- we have our questions about the methodology and the number, but that's something that's going to be discussed in this way, between TCU and Anatel.

There's a second one that is our claim for the sustainability and the financial balance of the concession that is also being discussed with Anatel. But at this time, in the arbitrage chamber that we have for this topic. In this case, we are claiming for a value that is higher than the value that was firstly declared as the 1 that we need for the migration. And we're still in the beginning of the process. We had the first hearing at the end of the year, and we are optimistic about the arguments and the sustainability and the lack of balance of the concession at the moment and for so many years. So we need to define what's going to be the outcome of these 2 processes. And the idea is to come into an agreement that's going to be beneficial to the market, to the country and, of course, to Vivo.

Our next question comes from Lucas Chaves from UBS.

My question is, especially on CapEx that you guided us. So where do you see the bulk of investments going to? I know you disclosed about 5G and fiber, but especially on fiber, would you be pursuing more client connections or see the expansion? And could you also give more color also on the division between 5G and fiber?

Lucas, this is Christian. I can start, and David may comprehend if he wants. Yes, it is in fiber, expansion is 1 of the lines that we're going to increase investment. Here, it's both in connecting customers and expanding network. It's -- again, I think our network is already close to 24 million home-pass. We said that we would reach the end of 2024 with 29 million. So there is 5 million homes to increase our footprint and -- but most importantly is to connect customers and we've been doing that in a very accelerated pace being the leading company in net adds of the market. Now the churn is very reduced and then being able to capture most of the market as we could see that almost 1 million new customers in the last year. So we're going to continue with this strategy, increasing footprint up to the 29 million that we already declared by end of 2024 and connecting more customers.

Here it's also good to highlight that we've been very strong in connecting customers with Vivo Total our convergent offer. 70% of the new ads come with the Vivo Total offer that also protect our postpaid base. That's why we have also a very reduced churn as we presented earlier.

In the 5G, we are ahead of the obligation of the auction. So apart from the 27 capitals, we already have 26 cities above 500,000 inhabitants. We're going to continue expanding in the cities that we are already there. We need to expand also some other new cities, but that I'm not going to share here, but we're going to expand a little bit beyond what's required by the auction. And we are going to do that in a very intelligent way following the penetration of 5G smartphones.

Today, we have 18% of 5G smartphones in our customer base. So we're going to continue deploying network where we see that there is a customer base requiring 5G connection. So it's going to be a very -- as we did in the past, using big data to be very precise and we're going to deploy our CapEx. So that's the main lines of CapEx. It's below -- it's going to be below [9%]. We don't have the money that we spent to implement 5G to start with the technology. And we don't have also this year the money that we spent to integrate mobile customers from Oi that is fully integrated in our customer base. And we are now totally on the speed to continue growing customer base, both in mobile and fiber.

Our next question comes from Marcelo Santos from JPMorgan.

Hi, Christian, David, Joao Pedro. I have 2 questions. First, if you could provide an overview of how the competitive environment is in mobile. I saw that you recently raised prices for the -- at least on the website. And the second question is regarding Vivo Money. Your portfolio is growing a lot. Could you share a bit more details about APRs, NPLs, how these loans behave?

Marcelo, let's talk about the mobile dynamics. Also as we presented commercially speaking, it was a great year for Vivo. Now we continue to expand our market share, and we continue to expand both in prepaid and in postpaid. So when we see the number that we have to deal [of access] 980 million, access compared to 83.9 million we had 1 year before. Of course, you consider that the 12 million that we got from Oi, but the 3.3 million that we disconnected. So in real numbers, in absolute numbers was very, very extremely positive. And in net adds, we were the leading company in portability as well. So that's also, again, an example of our perceived superior value proposition. And when we add that to the fiber 1 that the Vivo Total that I mentioned before also put us in a unique position to be the leading company of both technologies, the 4G, 5G plus fiber. And that our churn reflects that. The [1.05] of the last quarter was the lowest one and the market share of almost 39%.

Having said that, we are very, very keen on monetizing all the investments that have been doing in the last years. So we are the one increasing prices. We did that last year. We are doing again in the entry plans for all our postpaid plans. So I'll give you an example. Now in January, our entry plan for hybrid was adjusted to BRL 57, used to be BRL 50.99. So that was an important increase. And when I compared to others, we are above them in price and in what we offer by this price. So I think it's a normal behavior that we expect to be followed by others because we are giving back what inflation is at the moment and also giving back to customers what was the benefit that they got from the ISMS reduction. We did the same in the entry point of our individual postpaid plan.

Today, our first plan is BRL 122 per month. And the same we did in the family plan that is also a good plan for us that we increased to BRL 242. Doing the same in the Vivo Total, also increasing our bundle that I said is responsible for 70% of our FTTH sales. Again, here, we increased price. Now the first one is at BRL 200. So we are putting the market in a different price point, expectation that our peers follow this movement because we are doing here is passing through inflation.

The same in the fiber, in FTTH, 50% of our customer base will be increased in price. So we have now the enterprise of BRL 120 with 300 megabits as speed for the fiber service. In prepaid, would like to do the same. I think the prepaid price has been in the same level for many years. Now we just have the benefit of the ISMS reduction with more data that's offered to the customers. We need to move this price up, especially when you move the hybrid price up. If you don't do that in the prepaid, it will be difficult to continue with the successful strategy we are keeping all following of migrating prepaid to hybrid. So here again, we expect market to move up in prepaid as well. I think that was the first question. The second one was...

On Vivo Money.

Vivo complementary -- Vivo Money. We are very -- sorry, do I need to continue the first one, Marcelo, or should I move to the second?

No, no, the first 1 is perfect. I was just reminding the Vivo Money question.

Okay. The Vivo Money, we are highlighting here, our loan portfolio. It reached BRL 183 million is like 7x higher than it was 1 year before. It's almost 6x higher in number of contracts. And that's a combination of manufacturers that we could give you more light on that. And we are very satisfied with the performance of these loans. So I think Vivo has been investing a lot in models, in credit models, not only for money, but also for our own customer base. And that's been successful for the bad debt number that we have and also for the performance of Vivo Money that is growing. And we are growing that also combining more services. We have Vivo Pay, our digital wallet. We are selling more and more insurance. We are entering -- we have this co-branded plan card, sorry, with Itau, that's also been very successful, increasing sales of smartphones and other devices using this card.

And we now have said, we invested in a consortia company because we're launching something here. So we see that our capability of selling other services, combining our customer base, our low customer acquisition costs, our brands, our billing capability, our credit capability is giving proof that the potential that we have, expanding not only in financial services but beyond that. So that's why we're also going to do more in health with our service more in education and other lines that we're going to give more color in the next calls as we are doing now Vivo Money.

I don't know, David, if you want to comment.

Marcelo, just to add that. I mean, we are very positive and optimistic about the evolution of this business that's growing very fast. So we are monitoring very carefully always the greatest [coin] to make sure that, I mean, the bad debt is under control with very low levels. So positive to keep these trends that we have seen over the last 12 months to keep like this for the future.

Our next question comes from Phani Kumar from HSBC.

My first question is regarding the dividend. So typically, you have stated before that you distribute 100% of the net income as dividends. But the recent -- the yesterday's announcement of requesting prior consent from Anatel, do you see that you'll be increasing that dividend payout ratio as your target dividend payout ratio? The second question is regarding the risk of concession. So if you cannot reach an agreement with Anatel by 2025, do you see a scenario where you lose the concession agreement? And what would be the potential impacts on your operations because of that?

I'll go through the second one. We are very optimistic that we're going to find a solution for the concession, and I think it's going to be positive for everyone especially because you're talking about the concession of more than 20 years that is related to voice services and public telephony that we all agree that is a service that is not demanded anymore. So we work in a very optimistic scenario that it reached an agreement, and I think all the parts are very reasonable about the outcome that we are pursuing here. So at the moment, is what thing that I can share. And it's important also to see, as we call the core revenues and noncore revenues. We're talking about the service that has a very low share in our revenue mix. So the impact is going to be even lower if we talk about 2 years from now. So again, optimistic about the solution we are working on that in different fronts. And let's wait for the next quarters to see the outcome of that. I will give you the dividends to David.

Hi Phani, just -- regarding the first question. If you look back the last 2 years, Telefonica Brasil, we generate more than BRL 7 billion free cash flow per year, 2021-2022. However, the net income is a lower amount because some of the elements, particularly investments have already been paid, but still being depreciated, particularly special occasion and so on. So the capital reduction in case is approved, will allow us to have a higher number of dividends paid higher than the net income. So that means that the payout will be -- you are right, above 100% in the future.

Our next question comes from Soomit Datta from New Street Research.

A couple of questions, please. One on the free cash flow, there was a very favorable working capital movement in Q4 and again in 2022. I just wondered what was driving that? And can you give any steer as to kind of future direction of working capital? It was quite a big component of the BRL 7.3 billion free cash flow, that would be helpful. And then secondly, just on the cash return policy. You mentioned you thought your shares were undervalued. There is a buyback of BRL 500 million, but it's relatively small compared to the presumed overall dividend and IOC payment. I wonder how did you kind of think about forming the mix of buyback dividend? Could there be a higher buyback component? And just finally, sorry, on that buyback, is Telefonica participating in the buyback -- Telefonica parent participating in that?

Okay. Soomit, let me take the question. So first of all, the positive working capital. I mean, you're right, the first quarter we have BRL 268 million, for the full year BRL 3 billion. The previous year was also positive. So the main drivers for having this positive working capital first is a positive tax asset recognition that we had in previous years. So this is a positive effect that will not be reversed in the future. So we'll not be reversed in the future, because in 3, 4 years ago we have a positive in the net income that we didn't bring cash. Now we are seeing the cash coming from that effect.

Also, another one is the effect of FISTEL. So FISTEL, we have [alumina] so we have a decision not to pay FISTEL over the last 3 years. So this is BRL 700 million per year. So -- this is also something that is benefiting not only Telefonica Brasil but all the sector in Brazil, the working capital.

Then I mean, the second question regarding the share buyback. I mean, we have been having over the last -- particularly the last year, BRL 600 million. We believe, I mean, this is the right number to give more liquidity to our share. So looking for 2023, we believe that BRL 500 million will address the strategy that we had in the previous year. And regarding share of Telefonica, I say, I mean, we really know that -- we are not aware of anything. So we are just buying on the market, BRL 500 million per year as we did last year.

Our next question comes from Felipe Cheng from Santander.

So 2 on my side. The first 1 regarding, if you guys could provide a little bit more details on the opportunity for additional growth in B2B digital services. This is -- that's 1 of the revenue lines, which has been growing at a faster pace and call me a lot of attention. So if you could provide a little bit more detail where the future opportunities are, how big the addressable market is -- and if you continue to see room to grow at this high double-digit pace that you have been growing in the past few quarters? And the second question regarding M&A, if you can talk a little bit about potential M&A opportunities in the short term. Where would they be concentrated in which segments? So any color on that would be great.

So let's go to the M&A, you refer to fiber M&A?

Fiber or digital services, where do you see more opportunities for M&A?

Look, there are different ways of using M&A. So like in the B2C digital services, what we are doing is basically investing through our corporate venture capital fund. That is a Vivo Venture, now that I said that we made 2 investments in fintech. And then we have BRL 320 million to spend, and we envision investing in 12 companies along the years. Now that's going to be a minority stake. It's not an acquisition. We're also looking for potential acquisitions in the same areas that we are considering for the venture, our corporate venture capital. So we're talking about B2C. We are talking about health, fintech, education, energy and some new areas that we are now researching and to see how we could leverage, again, knowing the attributes that we believe are unique in Vivo that is the superior brand the customer base, the building capability, the channel capillarity online and offline and other attributes that we normally discuss. So we are very open, and we are talking to different companies, and we're going to be bringing a news, I think, along the quarters.

In the B2B is the same. We acquired a company called Vita IT last year. It's a network integrator, 1 of the key partners of Cisco in Brazil. It's been a very smooth integration, and we are very positive about the returns that we're going to capture with this acquisition. The same way, Telefonica is acquiring companies globally. Telefonica Tech is the initiative that Telefonica has for B2B digital services. They are creating independent business for that. One focus is in the product development or product partnership. It's not in the sales. The sales is done by the operator in our case. But we have these 3 companies in Brazil, 1 focus in cyber, another 1 focused in cloud and the third one, focus on big data and IoT. So these 3 companies, we have established the same 3 companies that Telefonica has in Spain here and Brazil, and we are working very closely to them.

So going forward, when we talk about B2B digital service that we said, the BRL 2.7 billion, and there is a growth of 29%, we continue to see a very, very optimistic growth for the next quarters, especially because we are the only 1 with the channel capillarity among not only our sector, but all sectors, even the big players of this industry. They meet our capillarity. And here, I just -- I'm not talking just about the large companies of the country. The possibility that we foresee here as the growth is because we reach even the small companies of the country. So with this capability and with all the companies now searching for digitalizing their operation and that I think was accelerated by the pandemic. Everyone wants to be in cloud, everyone is worried about cybersecurity. Everyone wants to have new notebooks and no relied just in desktops. And all these new ideas, not counting on the IoT that we also see developing very, very strongly with the arrival of 5G.

We see ourselves prepared because we have the teams to develop the product, leveraging on the Telefonica's group capability, and we have the channel already in place to respond to this demand. So the growth here, we don't give trends, but we only see positive in all lines of these services in B2B and also in B2C. We talked about money, but we're going to talk about many other services that we see also growing here, not only growing revenue but also protecting and reducing churn that we see entertainment, for instance. We are, I think, 1 of the largest seller of OTT video services in Brazil. And what we see here is, it increased ARPU, but at the same time, it reduces churn because the customer gets committed to Vivo in more than 1 service, 2 services is Vivo Total, 3 services has a digital service with us as well. So the vision is clear. And we only see upside in both B2B and B2C.

I don't know if I answered you, Felipe, it was long, because there are lots of things to say here.

Perfect. If I may just make 1 quick follow-up on the M&A side. If you could maybe talk a little bit about consolidation prospects here for the FTTH segments. How actively you plan to be if you see this market starting to consolidate a little bit quicker in 2023. So just get your overall perception regarding this topic.

I think the market needs to be consolidated. Now I think that's clear for everyone. No, we started with fiber before everyone. We now have 24 million home pass. We have 5.5 million customers, and we are the only 1 able to offer with the size of operation, the convergent offer. So we are in a very unique and leading position. Having said that, we believe that there's no sense of having 3 fiber networks in the same city. So we need to be much more rational. And I think there was -- in the past, the market are feeling that everyone could build a fiber network and everyone would be successful. I don't think that's going to happen anymore. And I think with the numbers that we see of the market or total assets of the market is making what I say real. No, we don't see the market growing the same way.

And when we see the leading 1 in net adds of the market, share of net adds, we see Vivo is standing out. So it's also a business that requires CapEx. It's not only CapEx of deploying the network, but it's also CapEx to connecting the customers. It needs a lot of things to make it happen in a successful way. And when you talk about neutral networks, or anchor tenants and someone that is really able to occupy this network in a good percentage. So having said all that, I believe that consolidation needs to happen and may happen, especially in the context of high interest rates. In our case, we generate cash. So as we've said before, our free cash flow is very strong, as you all could see in our presentation. But others maybe they have a different situation.

So with the unique investment to continue to grow and with interest rates at that level, the cost of capital is not going to be that low as it used to be in the past. So we are open to see what's the opportunity. We have 24 million home pass. We may have a lot of overlap with most of the players. So that could be a reason not to buy if the overlap is very high. So that's something is 1 of the criteria that we have in M&A.

And the second and the third that are very important is the quality of the network that we are acquiring. We are not going to give up the best quality network that we have both in mobile and fiber. So if you decide to buy something, it needs to be in the level of quality that we expect to offer to our customers, not only the network but also the CPE because that's an important part of the investment.

And of course, finally, we only look for companies that has all the fiscal labor and all the other assets that we believe are correct to be in place in a due diligence that would fit the way we manage our company. So again, open to see, we haven't found anyone so far. But I think the market is a little bit more open to discussion than it was 1 year ago.

The question-and-answer section is over. We would like to hand the floor back to Mr. Christian Gebara for the company's final remarks. Please, Mr. Christian.

Okay. So thank you, everyone, for participating in our call. As you could see, we have like [apart from] a very strong result in all the lines. We have a very domestic and strong perspective for the year. We have many other things going on that we described here coming from new businesses like expansion of the current business and also our capital structure that we have new things coming up. We are here all the team at your disposal to discuss in more detail or any questions that you must have. And again, we have a positive perspective for the next quarters, okay? So thank you all for participating.

Vivo's conference call is now closed. We thank you for your participation, and wish you a very good day.